Page 37 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

His mouth opens. Closes. I cut him off in the porno apartments because I already know. I saw my box in his bag as we were going through security at the airport.

“I didn’t want you to suffer,” he ends up saying.

“I’m quite capable of going a few days without orgasming.”

“A few days? Try decades.”

“Oh, I see.” I shove his shoulder with two fingers. “The truth is finally free.”

He glares where I touched, as if I burned him.

The choir music no longer plays. All I hear is the crackling fire as he lifts his wild eyes to mine and asks, “And what truth is that, Sister?”

The way he spits that last word like a knife, aimed directly at the costume I wear.

“You’ve already passed judgment on me,” I accuse, lips twisting with disgust. “You can go decades without sex, but I can’t go a few days, so I must be a whore, then, right? I’m just some Jezebel you relapse with, someone you taste-test. I’m not even worth the full—oof.”

Cisco is on me, throwing me back onto the ground—my spine slams, and my head snaps back, teeth rattling. He traps me beneath his heavy body, stubble scraping my cheek as he snarls in my ear, “You think this is a game, piccola? You think you want me to snap?”

Heart pounding in my chest, I grab the sides of his shirt and grind my hips into his, moaning when I feel the hard ridge of his arousal.

“Maybe,” I moan.

His head rests against mine. “No, you don’t.”

I untuck his shirt. “Yes, I do.”

He grabs my wrists and pins them at my sides. “If I let this leash go, I don’t ‘fuck’ you, Mercy. I devour you.”

“Wasn’t so bad last time. You know, when you said I was yours.”

I flex my hips into his until he releases a strangled groan. I do it again. He punches the chalk beside my head, a fist on each side. The impact is so hard that the ground trembles beneath my spine. We stay there, staring into each other’s wild eyes, both prisoners of our secret fears.

The fire crackles. Water drips. And somewhere in the ruins, a wine bottle falls, tinkling heavily down stone.

I tense. Cisco’s head whips to the side, and he scours the darkness.

“Something’s here,” he snarls, pushing up to stand.

Something. Not someone.

Ribbons of shadow move over his skin, slithering out of his collar and sleeves. He strides into the darkness before I can stop him.

I grab the blade and chase after him, but I don’t need to go far. He stops a few feet away, where a waist-high limestone retaining wall carries a marble arcade.

Beneath the nearest archway, a hooded figure leans against a pillar. One blanket-covered leg is bent at the knee, and the other casually hangs off the ledge. Wait, is that a hooded blanket? The type you buy on late-night infomercials?

A pile of wine bottles is beside him, each filled with cigarette butts instead of wine. When he takes a drag, the blunt lights up, revealing a familiar and devastatingly handsome face.

“Asmodeus?” I gasp.

He exhales smoke and replies, “In the tawdry flesh.”

Fourteen

Mercy

The man before me is not what I expect from a Demon Prince of Lust.